City News Blog

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City Crews Respond to Downed Power Lines at Lakeland Hills Blvd

On Thursday April 5th 10:30am crew 372 from Lakeland Electric was dispatched to Lakeland Hills Blvd. at the entrance to Tiger Town where a driver had lost control of his vehicle and knocked over a utility pole.

The pole housed street light power lines, phone service cables and fiber optic cables and equipment belonging to the City of Lakeland.

In response to the accident, City of Lakeland employees from the fire department, police department, and information technologies department along with Lakeland Electric were sent to the scene.

The first responders from the police department noted downed cables and called for all four lanes of traffic on Lakeland Hills Blvd. to be rerouted. This action involved the use of multiple LPD units.

The first responder from Lakeland Electric, Troubleman, Edgar Willis, insured that the downed lines were safe. After surveying the damage, he requested assistance from the Energy Delivery Division.

This allowed the paramedics to treat the driver who was transported to the hospital by Polk County EMS.

Information Technologies technicians were sent to the scene because the accident had severed the City's computer network lines that connect Joker Marchant Stadium and the Parks Department operations at Tiger Town.

Those technicians, Robert Smith and David Tate, were tasked with replacing the damaged equipment cabinet and splicing the fiber optic cables that were damaged.

Lakeland Electric crews, dispatched to the sight, included Linemen, Christopher Hodges, Cody Sherrouse, Doug Bergwall, Douglas King, John Barefoot, Matthew Thomas and Todd Walker. They worked for 4 1/4 Hours erecting a new pole, re-attaching the street light and reactivating the power lines.

Two LPD personnel remained on the scene to block traffic from entering the work area.